Hanami
by Starling-chan
Summary: Fill for the kink meme prompt: "Haru discovers cutting, and Yuki is not pleased." Yuki tries to help Haru recover.


The sound of water rushing out of the faucet fills the kitchen. In moments, the water fades from dark red to light pink and finally clear, until the only hints of what Yuki was washing is the blood staining his own hands.

He places the knife back in its stand before turning back to the sink and washing his hands. His movements are mechanical, too precise and controlled to be natural. Even after he's scrubbed his hands clean, he continues to stand in front of the sink, watching the water flow. If he can focus on just that, forget everything else for only a couple of moments…

"Yuki?" Haru asks from behind him, voice so small and hesitant, nothing like how he should be. "Are… you mad?"

Of course he's not mad, Yuki wants to say, but that would be lying. He's angry that Haru could do something like this. More than that, he's furious at himself for failing to notice.

Above all else, he's worried. From the moment he had seen Haru _(sitting at the desk with his feet in a bucket of water and staring at his arm, all too calmly watching the many cuts across his forearm)_ he's felt his anxiety rising, ready to overwhelm him like a tidal wave the moment he lets it. He's surprised he's managed to stay calm this long.

What is he going to do? It's true that Haru has been acting weird lately, and of course Yuki wants to know what's going on with his friend, but something like _this_? Kate would know what to do. But how is he supposed to tell her?

"Come on," he mutters, the tension between them almost palpable. He's never seen Haru so ill at ease before. He can't bring himself to look at Haru fully, gaze drawn to the white bandage wrapped around Haru's wrist before he forces himself to look away. He grabs Haru's hand as he leads him to his room, just in case Haru tries something stupid like running off, though he's been remarkably compliant so far.

They sit in Yuki's room, Haru on his bed and Yuki facing him from in front of his desk. Wind rattles the windows, yellow curtains shuddering slightly. No one says anything. Yuki fidgets, playing with the edge of his shirt. Haru fiddles with the blanket he's pulled across his lap.

"Why'd you do it?" Yuki blurts the words out before he's fully considered them, blanching when he realizes that he said that out loud. But he wants to know, doesn't understand at all, so he asks, "Were you trying to – trying to kill yourself?" The thought makes Yuki feel sick. Haru is too nice and happy to be suicidal. Is supposed to be, anyway.

Haru shakes his head. "I…" He draws his knees to his chest. He addresses his kneecaps when he says, "I don't know what to do."

What do you mean? Yuki is about to ask, but Haru continues, "Kate said that I should think about what I can do, but I can't think of anything. After Akemi-" He stops, chokes on the words, and adds in a rush, "I thought if bandages don't help when it's just my heart that hurts, maybe I need to have some kind of wounds on the outside." Now he lifts his head slightly, smiling at Yuki in such a twisted, sad way that Yuki hopes to never see such expression again. "It works pretty well, too. It helps more than I thought it would."

How? Yuki demands silently, clenching his hands into tight fists. How could cutting himself up like that help at all?

_(Several napkins lie on the table next to him, one already soaked dark red, and as Yuki watches, stunned, Haru places another one to his arm and red blooms, spreading steadily across the white napkin. A trail of blood runs down his arm to his elbow and slowly, almost reverently, Haru wipes it off.)_

"Is it really that bad?" Haru asks. "I'm not hurting anyone, and I don't have to think about _him_ for a while, so…"

_(The first thing Yuki does is snatch the knife out of Haru's hand, tossing it aside with more force than necessary. Then he drags Haru with him to the first aid kit and spends the next ten minutes trying to keep his hands steady enough to wrap the bandages in some semblance of neatness.)_

"Of course it's bad." Yuki is so quiet he can barely hear himself. He tries again, a little louder. "Isn't it obvious you hurt your friends?"

Haru shakes his head. "But I'm only cutting myself."

Sometimes, Yuki envies Haru's simple ways of seeing things. Other times, he hates it more than all of Haru's traits. "Don't you think it hurts us if you're hurt?" How would Natsuki react in this situation? Or Sakura-chan or Akira or anyone else? "How would you feel if Natsuki or - or I got injured?"

Haru responds with a conviction that, compared to his listlessness from the rest of the evening, is startling. "No. You're not allowed to be. You have to stay safe."

"Well you have to, too," Yuki argues. "It's not fair otherwise."

"But it's different. I like this. And-" Yuki can almost hear the rest of that, something along the lines of, "It doesn't count if it's me," and it's a good thing Haru doesn't say that, or else Yuki would have to punch him.

"How can you _like_ it? You were - don't you know you can kill yourself like that?"

_(There's so much blood, and Haru's arm is even more pale than usual, contrasting too much with Yuki's skin and far too little with the white bandages. How much blood loss can people go through before they die?)_

"I'm fine," Haru insists. "I'm not going to die."

But that means almost nothing when there's a knife sitting in the kitchen that's six inches long and all too sharp that was only ten minutes ago covered in Haru's blood. But Yuki is tired, too exhausted to argue about this any more today, so he rubs his head and says, "Just promise you won't do it again?" and hopes that this promise Haru will take seriously. When Haru doesn't respond, Yuki gets up and sits next to him, taking his hand and repeating, "Promise me that you won't - cut yourself again, Haru." His stumbling over the word is barely noticeable. _Please._

It takes a while, but at last Haru squeezes his hand and looks up at him and smiles, not quite right but better than before, and says, "I promise, Yuki."

Yuki sighs, relief and fatigue weighing him down, and hugs Haru briefly. "Go to sleep, okay? We'll… talk more about this later. Tomorrow." Hopefully he'll figure out what to say by then. Right now, all he can think of is yelling about how stupid Haru is being, and somehow that doesn't seem like the best approach.

Haru stands up. "Okay. Good night, Yuki." He leaves the room in sedated, hushed movements, more like a ghost than his normal self. Yuki waits a couple of minutes before getting up and following him, too worried to rest until he makes sure.

Haru's already asleep in his weird chair-bed, curled up in a tight ball. His bandages are just barely visible, peaking out past his pajama sleeve. The sight of them makes Yuki wince.

How long has Haru been doing this for? They live in the same house and are always together – how could Yuki not have noticed?

What should he do now?

Yuki stands at the doorway and watches him for a while before heading to bed himself. Despite how tired he is, he takes a long time to fall asleep, and it's a fitful sleep at best.

0

The shrill beeping of the alarm clock wakes Yuki in the morning. He slams the off button and rolls over, hiding his head under the pillow to escape the sunlight streaming in pas the curtains.

His head hurts and he's still exhausted, his entire body protesting the thought of getting up. But it's a school day; he has no choice.

What was he doing yesterday to wind up in such a condition…?

Oh. Right.

He sits up, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Maybe that was all a bad dream. He hopes it was; it certainly doesn't feel real. Haru would never do something like cut himself, right? He's, well, he's _Haru_.

In the kitchen, Haru is helping Kate cook breakfast, if the chaos he brings with him can be called help. He's wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but the sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, revealing nothing but unmarked skin on both arms.

So it _was_a dream. Yuki resists the urge to laugh from relief.

"Good morning, Yuki," his grandmother greets him. Haru echoes the greeting.

"Morning," says Yuki, setting the table. He's still tired, but relief lets him sound more lively.

He stares at Haru, unable to accept that everything really is fine just yet. It was a horrifying dream; he can't be blamed if he needs a little extra reassurance that it was only a nightmare, can he?

Except Haru twitches when he sees Yuki watching him, fumbles with the egg he was about to crack, and turns away hurriedly. With his free hand he rubs the patch of skin that should have a multitude of cuts on it.

All of Yuki's tentative relief crashes. That can't be a coincidence. Do aliens heal more quickly than humans, then, or something? What does it matter, honestly, the main point is the same and last night really happened and _what is he going to do_?

Breakfast passes awkwardly, with Haru not-so-subtly avoiding Yuki while babbling about whatever topic he can think of with a hint of nervousness, Yuki not saying much of anything, and Kate probably noticing that something is wrong but not asking what.

Once they're walking to the train station together, all of last night's tension returns. Haru stays uncharacteristically quiet, shuffling behind Yuki with none of the energy he'd shown over breakfast.

Yuki should say something. He still has no idea what.

"Yuki?" Haru says when they're across the street from the station, "Are you going to tell anyone?"

Yuki stares down at the ground. He doesn't know. Should he? Their friends deserve to know, don't they? But who knows how they'll react, and things like this should be kept private. "I won't," he says at last. "You can, if you want. As long as you don't do it again." Not that he will want to say anything, Yuki assumes. He'll probably keep acting like nothing's wrong. "Does Coco know?"

Haru smiles nervously. "No. She would be really mad if she found out. I don't want her to know." If Yuki listens right, he can pick up the hidden message begging him not to tell her, either.

Yuki should argue with that - out of everyone, Coco is the one who deserves to know the most - but they're boarding the train with too many people for such a discussion so he says nothing, grabbing the closest empty seat and collapsing onto it, closing his eyes and hoping that a quick nap will make him feel better.

He can't explain why, but Haru not invading his personal space for the first time makes his chest hurt a little.

0

A week passes uneventfully, then another. They go to classes, and then after school they fish with Natsuki, Akira tagging along with his duck. As the days pass, Haru loses the awkwardness that formed between them, going back to his normal loud and annoying self, and Yuki starts to forget. It's hard to picture Haru as anything but cheerfully energetic when he's always smiling like everything is right in the world. That Night seems more and more like an outlier that will never be repeated again.

Until Yuki sees several drops of red on Haru's sleeve on Saturday morning. Kate is outside, working on the garden, and Yuki and Haru are at the foyer, leaving to go fishing. Yuki drops his shoe, glaring at Haru. "What's this?" he demands, poking Haru right next to the marks.

Haru winces, immediately hiding his reaction behind a mask of confusion. "What's what, Yuki?" Then he notices the stains and jerks his hand to his chest. "Oh, this? It's, um, I accidentally, uh-"

"Don't lie to me!" How stupid does he think Yuki is? Haru can't lie to save his life. "You're still cutting yourself, aren't you?!" Haru bites his lip and stares down at the ground. Yuki feels a pang of sympathy, but it's not enough to ease his anger. "You promised you'd stop!"

"We're going to be late if we don't go now…"

"I don't care about that!" It's a useful reminder, though, and Yuki pulls out his phone and sends Natsuki a message saying that they're not going to be coming today. Then he leads Haru back inside to his room. After Haru sits on his bed, Yuki starts pacing.

_It's not that I wasn't paying attention,_ he thinks. _I was. He's just been acting so _normal_, how was I supposed to know that he hadn't stopped? _Rather like he hadn't noticed before, which says a lot about how good he is at paying attention. _Is it that important to him? _"How long have you been doing this for, anyway?" he wonders, not meaning to say it out loud.

He stops pacing when he sees Haru, sitting on his bed all hunched up, like he expects Yuki to start yelling at him. He's shaking, and after a couple of moments, Yuki realizes that he's crying. He kneels down in front of him, wondering what he should say. He's never had to comfort anyone before.

When he reaches out, Haru shrinks further into himself. "I'm sorry," he mumbles. "I know Yuki cares a lot about this and I really want to keep my promise, but it's hard." He looks up, tears running down his cheeks. There's a cut on his lip from where he bit it. "I didn't mean to."

How could someone _not mean _to cut themselves? "Let me see," Yuki says instead. It's obvious that Haru is upset, so being too harsh with him isn't going to do any good.

The cuts aren't so bad. They're already scabbing over, and though the longest one is almost two inches long, none of them look dangerous. Unpleasant and painful, sure, with the skin around them slightly inflamed, but nothing that would require urgent care. They don't even need bandages any more. Yuki rubs his thumb along Haru's wrist near the cuts slowly. "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"

"It's nothing much. I'm going to make sure that everyone stays safe." He says it so sincerely, too. "You don't need to worry about it."

What is _that_ supposed to mean? "You know I'm going to worry."

He startles when Haru moves, uncurling and sliding down to the floor and wrapping his arms around Yuki in a tight hug. "It's going to be okay, I promise."

_No it's not._ "Then you'll stop for real?"

Haru's silence is all the answer he needs.

"Why not?"

"It's not that I don't want to stop," Haru says in a rush. "It's just… I can't help myself. I keep thinking about it, and I only feel better after I do it." The pure misery in his voice is enough to convince Yuki that he means it, and while he hates it, he can't blame Haru for something like this.

There has to be something he can do to help. "Can you at least come find me whenever you, uh, want to cut?" How does it work, anyway; does Haru keep some sort of schedule, or does it depend more on how he's feeling at any particular moment? Anyway, they spend so much time together already that this should barely make a difference. "And, uh… You're not allowed to keep anything sharp." Should probably have thought of that sooner, but he'd thought, after Haru agreed so easily, that it wouldn't be a problem. "If you need to use scissors or anything, you have to get me or someone else." Is he going overboard? He's making it sound like Haru can't handle anything on his own.

Better to be overprotective than to find out that Haru accidentally cut himself too deep and bled to death, though. The image makes him shudder.

Haru hugs him tighter. "Okay. If it makes you feel better, I'll do it."

Yuki leans into the embrace, resting his head on Haru's shoulder, absently noting how nice Haru's warmth feels. "Yeah. It would."

0

Yahoo turns out to be very informative on the topic of cutting. Yuki scours the Internet for information, and while a lot of what he finds doesn't help him feel any better, it helps him understand, if only a little. It also inspires him to get Haru to wear rubber bands, so now Haru always has several bright and colourful ones wrapped around his wrist. A couple of classmates start copying him, even. It's the most disturbing fashion trend Yuki has witnessed.

The two also start spending even more time together. Part of it is Yuki being unwilling to leave Haru alone for long, but whenever he starts worrying about being too annoying, Haru will come seeking him instead. He takes that to mean that Haru doesn't mind.

He learns that aliens have a faster healing rate than humans, which partially explains why he never saw any wounds on Haru (and Haru confides in him that he used to cut on his chest more, but that his arms were a lot more convenient. Since Yuki doesn't make it a habit to state at Haru when he's shirtless, he supposes that he can forgive himself for not noticing. A little.) and why Haru sees no problem in injuries that could easily be dangerous to humans. He's ridiculously blasé he is about it all, saying things like, "Oh, that's nothing. I'd heal from that in a couple of days," when discussing something that should require stitches. Yuki remembers how much blood there had been That Night, and while he's relieved that it wasn't as bad as he thought, he still makes sure to impress upon Haru how fragile humans are and not to scare Yuki like that again.

The problem with the accelerated healing is that it means that most cuts that Haru makes disappear entirely within half a day. He has scars (so many of them, stripes of skin barely paler than the rest that remind Yuki all too much of tigers), but those are hard to spot at best. Yuki starts checking in on Haru at night before bedtime, a quick, "Is everything alright?" so as not to be too intrusive. Haru always smiles at him, already half-asleep, and after that, Yuki can sleep a bit better himself.

Keeping an eye on Haru is tiring, and he knows that it's not enough – sometimes it seems like every time he looks away Haru finds a way to hurt himself, and it makes him so frustrated he wants to scream or cry or break something – but it's worth it whenever Haru smiles at him and says, "I feel better now" or "Thanks, Yuki" or nothing at all, but still makes it obvious that he's a little better off than before.

He still won't tell Yuki what's bothering him, but he says that he's thought of what he can do, and that he'll take care of everything and not to worry about it. After that, things get a little easier. Haru still sometimes gets too conveniently clumsy around sharp objects and Yuki has to scold him for it, but the worst seems to be over.

One night, rather than the standard "Goodnight, Yuki," Haru says, "Could you stay a little?"

All day, Haru has been acting weird. Truthfully, Yuki is grateful for the excuse to stay. He isn't sure he trusts Haru on his own right now. "Sure, if you want."

Haru smiles and moves to the side on his bed, clearly inviting Yuki to lie down next to him. Yuki blushes and almost trips over his own feet when he approaches the bed.

His blush intensifies when he lies down and realizes that the bed is quite certainly designed with only one person in mind, so he has to press close to Haru to fit. Haru doesn't seem to mind, not that Yuki would expect someone as clingy as him to mind their proximity, but by the time they're settled into a position that is relatively comfortable – Haru hugging Yuki like he's an oversized teddy bear and Yuki hugging him back because he has nowhere else to put his arms – his face must be as red as his hair.

But Haru is warm and he snuggles closer to Yuki and whispers, "Goodnight, Yuki," into his ear, and Yuki forgets his discomfort, relaxing against Haru, feeling Haru's heart beat match his own.

He's only going to stay until Haru falls asleep, then return to his own bed. But it won't hurt if he closes his eyes for a little while… "Goodnight, Haru."


End file.
